Essex 41 Deep Run 7
- Thread starter riversportsfan
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Congrats to Essex on another big win over a higher level opponent! Malik Martin did another outstanding job and is a great leader as well. Martin is a fine young man who leads by example and does whatever it takes to help his team. While we all know that Essex is highly talented, they are also being coached well and all seem to be on the same page with the same goals this season. As I stated before, an excellent schedule and planning for this season. Great scouting and game preparation and needed adjustments being made.
This is the year to take down JM! Essex has a bye week to get ready and healthy. What a great time to have the bye with a powerhouse JM to keep the boys focused over the long two weeks. Nicely done....
Now that the Deep Run game is over, I am surprised that they agreed to play a smaller powerhouse like Essex. Seemed like a win, win for Essex and a lose, lose for Deep Run. I would say it was way more risky for Deep Run to play Essex last night, than the other way around. So props for DR for giving Essex the game. At least Essex will give them some rider points I suppose.
This is the year to take down JM! Essex has a bye week to get ready and healthy. What a great time to have the bye with a powerhouse JM to keep the boys focused over the long two weeks. Nicely done....
Now that the Deep Run game is over, I am surprised that they agreed to play a smaller powerhouse like Essex. Seemed like a win, win for Essex and a lose, lose for Deep Run. I would say it was way more risky for Deep Run to play Essex last night, than the other way around. So props for DR for giving Essex the game. At least Essex will give them some rider points I suppose.
I was very surprised to see that Deep Run was playing Essex, since Deep Run hasn't been good for years and are bad even by 1A standards. I don't see Essex beating the better athletes at JM or stopping JM's running game. JM's defense is also better than it has been recently.
I agree. Deep Run has been down for a few years. Look at it this way, why keep Nandua or Mathews on the schedule. We would win those games pretty easily. Replaced them with 4A King George (hard fought game) and 5A Deep Run(no better than a Team that finishes 4-6 in 1A in my book). As you know, Essex beat both DR & KG. In the process got way more points for beating those 2 than what we would of gotten if we kept Nandua & Mathews on the schedule. Just for DR, Essex got 24 points I believe. Those point will go a long way in helping secure the #1 seed in the East. On top of that, Essex still has to face a good 3A James Monroe in 2 weeks that will give us more good points win or not. Other than 2A W&L, the rest are 1A games. Goochland, King George and King William (KW in1st half) were hard fought games. And now we're facing the toughest game of our regular season in 3A James Monroe. In this day and age when points determine if a team will be playing at home or they hit the road come playoff time, I see it as smart scheduling.
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Essex just may need a win over JM to stay in front of Riverheads which has 5 2A's left to play. If Deep Run goes 0-10 it's no better than Essex beating a 4-6 1A. Also, King George hasn't been much help so far and probably is looking at three and at the most 4 more wins.
No disrespect intended but scheduling weak 3,4,or 5 A teams determining seeding is almost as bad as getting "style" points for blowouts. Riverheads has been accused of doing the same and honestly it is ridiculous that the playoffs seem to be inviting this kind of junk. Since I have no part in the schedule, I just hope we beat whomever gets scheduled and frankly the rest works itself out. 2 years ago had we beat Wilson regular season we would not have had to travel to Giles and get beat. Of course everyone wants home games but championship caliber teams travel well, period. We were not good enough to win on the road so we didn't deserve to move on. Had we been at home, I would have liked our chances to get to Salem only to lose to Giles then. Better team usually wins regardless of location. This is just my opinion, cause all things equal, home field is worth 3 points.
Great point NNDman...should be interesting indeed. Yes, JM will be the heavy favorites at home as they should be considering they are a perennial 3A powerhouse. Also, Coach Serbay and crew does an outstanding job with his JM program. A true Virginian Hall of Famer.
JM won last year 37-14 over Essex. I enjoy the ebbs and flows of a game and Essex was in it for a bit, but the better team pulled away after a few momentum swings went their way, if I remember correctly.
Now the year before that, I witnessed probably the most exciting high school game I have ever seen. In Fredericksburg, JM pulled out a thriller, 40-37 in OT over Essex. Seemed like 1,000 JM fans against 200 Trojans. It was awesome. That game was full controversy as the head ref overruled his own crew many times, mostly going against Essex to the chagrin of the Trojan fans. To be fair, some bad calls went against JM. I expect this time, the best crew from that association will be sent after that recent fiasco.
JM is 3-1. I believe that Essex would also be 3-1 if having played the same schedule. Only the Dinwiddie Generals are better.
Sure JM is always good and will be tough to defeat, however, I do think that their star transfer player from W&L should sit this one out ha, out of respect for the Neck....
JM won last year 37-14 over Essex. I enjoy the ebbs and flows of a game and Essex was in it for a bit, but the better team pulled away after a few momentum swings went their way, if I remember correctly.
Now the year before that, I witnessed probably the most exciting high school game I have ever seen. In Fredericksburg, JM pulled out a thriller, 40-37 in OT over Essex. Seemed like 1,000 JM fans against 200 Trojans. It was awesome. That game was full controversy as the head ref overruled his own crew many times, mostly going against Essex to the chagrin of the Trojan fans. To be fair, some bad calls went against JM. I expect this time, the best crew from that association will be sent after that recent fiasco.
JM is 3-1. I believe that Essex would also be 3-1 if having played the same schedule. Only the Dinwiddie Generals are better.
Sure JM is always good and will be tough to defeat, however, I do think that their star transfer player from W&L should sit this one out ha, out of respect for the Neck....
I think the general consensus was 4A King George was supposed to take the next step this year. It just hasn't panned out yet. Goochland and King William are quality 2A opponents. James Monroe is a high caliber 3A opponent. Yeah they took a chance on 5A Deep Run, but like NNDman said, it won't really help them but so much. Deep Run hasn't and won't always be that bad. I am pretty sure their opponents will have one of the best cumulative win/lose records in 1A.
I'm not saying Essex was looking for weak teams in higher division to play just for points. The point I'm trying to make is playing Deep Run/King George vs. a Nandua/Mathews is a better combo for Essex. Dropping Nandua and picking up King George is a plus for Essex. It's better competition plus the points. Same for dropping Mathews for Deep run. Although DR (1-9) and Mathews (2-8) last year, I would say DR is better between the 2. So technically, Essex did improve the non-district schedule a little bit by adding these 2 schools. I personally thought DR would be better being that they play schools like Hermitage, Hanover, Atlee and so on.
This is/was not directed at Essex. They are consistently in the hunt. I am mainly saying that the system in place promotes scheduling of weaker out of conference opponents in higher classes across the board. It's a flawed system that rewards mediocrity out of about half of those that make the playoffs. Sure there are a few upsets but how many 4 win teams need to travel 3 hours to be destroyed. We have all seen it and while it does generate some much needed revenue for the VHSL, it is usually not worth watching. I am sorry to hi-jack this thread but speaking as a fan, this system has to change and be a little less about participation trophies for an average season. With all this said, I am not in any way implying that Essex is doing anything against the rules. It's the system that is played under I have issue with. I am not familiar enough with the East to even suggest that there are others that could be scheduled, but generally(Lee being the lone exception for years with us, personal issues between coaches) we play whoever is around us. If we are fortunate enough to play into the playoffs, I truly don't care where we play. We travel well and just play our brand of football. Good luck to Essex as I would like to see this matchup on either field, hell Salem will work for me too. #RedPride
Other than some of the schools in Spotsylvania County, I'm not sure what else Essex can do to make their schedule tougher. They play all the strong 1A schools in that area and James Monroe who is top 3 in 3A. Essex made the effort to play a Triple A school, I commend them for that.
I get what you are saying RedPrideNation. If things work, I'll be in Luray to check out your squad this Friday.
Look forward to meeting you if you are able to make the trip. I will be at the 20 hollering like an idiot, lol.
This is a slippery slope. Many larger schools will not play Essex due to them being a 1A school and they have nothing to gain and everything to lose. The smaller schools will do want to schedule Essex due to the history of the program. Essex offered AltaVista a regular season game at the state championship game last year and they chose not to. Yes, when the system is built around power points, this is the scheduling you get. Deep Run plays Glen Allen this week, both are winless and at least Deep Run has scored some points this year as opposed to Glen Allen. A couple wins will help that points spread stay alive. I think the King George and Deep Run games were a huge improvement over Nandua and Mathews. The problem is, they jump from 1A in the NND, straight into 3/4A schools near the metro areas. They do get Goochland and King William to help them out. I think Gloucester would have been a decent fit for the schedule, however they reportedly declined as well. The best Essex can hope for is to win out the season and let the points fall where they may and hope other teams can do the same. If they lose to JM or any other team, looks like it will be a few road games.
RedPrideNation- I'm glad that you chimed in. Great to read different perspectives and converse with a variety of good folks. I saw that you mentioned about why is Riverheads on the major radar?- Well, to knowledgeable Essex (Neck) fans, with Thornhill graduating from AltaVista last year and Riverheads dropping to 1A, we knew who would probably be the next power to deal with....Riverheads has a proud program and traditions who also has a very large, loud fan base, I am told. The last three years, Essex has had two great experiences with more western teams traveling, one not so much ha. Of course, who knows who will be traveling this season and like last season, two East teams could be fortunate to meet in Salem.
longtimerhsfan- if you see this, I have always enjoyed your work. Please also post in the 1A board as that is your school's new home. Many people may not go back and forth between boards.
Lastly, does anyone know if you can go to the old thread mode to see how the posts and posters lay out in the tree format - also can the title be changed in the same thread? sometimes threads go off in tangents which can be enjoyable to some or maybe not to others- but nice to make choice whether to follow.
longtimerhsfan- if you see this, I have always enjoyed your work. Please also post in the 1A board as that is your school's new home. Many people may not go back and forth between boards.
Lastly, does anyone know if you can go to the old thread mode to see how the posts and posters lay out in the tree format - also can the title be changed in the same thread? sometimes threads go off in tangents which can be enjoyable to some or maybe not to others- but nice to make choice whether to follow.
the tree form is no longer available (not my call fire and pitchfork crowd) and the title of a thread can be changed by the original thread starter if he/she edits their first post.
